Google Targets TV Advertising

mytrip writes to tell us that Google may have television advertising in the cross-hairs. CEO Eric Schmidt recently stated that viewers shouldn't have to stand for tv commercials that are a "waste of your time" and says Google is planning to deliver "targeted measurable television ads." I just hope I can still skip them with my TiVO in a couple years.

TV? Television?

[ackthpt]

Google is so ubiquitous it seems going to TV advertising is going backward.

I know I've heard of those somewhere. I'll have to Google it and find out what it is.

Well

[ShooterNeo]

The overall concept is great. If commercials were 'targetted' to the particular viewer, they would be more effective and hence could either raise more revenue for television networks or allow for shorter commercial breaks.

The catch is this : I don't see what role google can have in this. They might be able to develop the technology for delivering the video cheaply and reliably using google OS and commodity PC hardware, like the rest of their systems work. This would make the back end at the cable and telecom tv providers cheaper. They could also develop the mechanism for choosing commercials ('searches' based on a users demographics) and evaluating success.

However, the profit is still in owning the pipes. How can google make money when the ownership of the network is in the hands of other : the telephone and cable companies.

Popups

[Ark42]

If Google can reverse the trend on some channels to move towards LARGE popups that move around and make noise on the bottom have of the screen DURING the actual show, completely ruining and interrupting it, than GREAT! Go for it!. I really hate trying to read something on the screen like a subtitle or place&time text only to have a big race car drive across it, obscuring my view and making loud tire screeching noises over a quiet/dark/moody intro scene to some show.

Quiet, text-only, to-the-point, factual advertisement is a lot more tolerable.

I don't like it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to like Google, and I do love most of their products, but the power and reaches of their information gathering and processing does have me a little concerned. Not to mention their infinite data retention policies. I don't think Google would necessarily do anything "bad" with that data, but that's not the point. All it takes is one incident to affect potentially millions of people.

Most people aren't as smart as you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having quite a bit of marketing background, I can assure you that it's completely intentional when an ad isn't like the Geico or Apple ads you mention. The main problem with such ads is that they don't explicitly show the product enough. They work fine for an insurance ad, as insurance really isn't a tangible thing (like a bottle of beer or a particular restaurant are). When it comes to something like insurance, you're trying to get the viewer to remember the name or the logo. It's rare that one can successfully associate something memorable with the name of a firm, as in the case of a gecko with the name "Geico".

Most ads are there to appeal to the ignorant, unwashed masses. And what often works best is to show them your product over and over and over and over and over and over. Like in Gatorade commercials, which are often just a montage of many clips of sweathy athletes drinking Gatorade. The same goes for shampoo. That way the consumer will remember the appearance of the item the next time they're in a store that sells it.

Re:Popups

[magictiger]

I agree. Advertisements have gotten far too obtrusive. If you want to advertise something, put it in the breaks that are built into every show. Don't put something across the sides or bottom of the screen to distract me in the middle of the show. That's just going to make me want to find a copy of the show without the ads.

If people are pushed toward downloading ad-free copies of a show, then nobody watches the ads, the advertisers stop advertising, and the ad revenue for the cable co goes to crap. It's in their best interests to make the advertisements interesting and unobtrusive. They make money, they keep us happy, and we keep watching.

see cringely, january 2006, for details

[avi33]

This would be a clever bit of insight on ZDnet's part if it hadn't been exhaustively explored by Robert Cringely seven months ago [pbs.org].

Basically, by buying up bandwidth and data center capabilities everywhere, google could insert context-driven advertising into any video stream on its way to the consumer, and do it far more efficiently and effectively than the networks are capable of.

The future of ads is product insertion ...

[LaughingCoder]

Imagine watching Seinfeld and Jerry pulls a Coke from his refrigerator. Only, in some households he might be seen pulling a Pepsi. Developing the technology to dynamically insert products into the programming is the next logical step in advertising. We see it already, statically, with companies paying gobs of money for product insertion. Imagine instead shooting movies and programming with "generic" green-board like products, and then replacing them with images of the desired product, on a case-by-case basis. You already see some of this in baseball games. There is an ad billboard behind home plate in Fenway park. Nominally it is "green", but it gets replaced in the video stream (at the broadcaster end) with ads. It's not a huge step to move this insertion down to the DVR/cable box. This is where companies like TIVO have the inside track. Their boxes could do the insertion, under command from 'central control'. And they already know our viewing habits (not just what we watch, but when we watch it, and for how long), and our "clicking" habits.

Re:Google the next MS?

[bblboy54]

Until Google does something to betray my trust, I would much rather have Google getting into these other markets than MS beating them to it. Sure, it's a concern that Google is infiltrating everything but I have this simple thought: If Google doesnt do it, someone else will and right now, I trust Google more than any other company.

Same thing over the Internet

[widesan]

Disclaimer: I created WideSAN [widesan.com]

I've been working on a similar idea, except that the video is delivered over the Internet. With the WideSAN [widesan.com] system, I can already deliver video with individually customized advertising inserted effortlessly by the server. Either as a standard AVI or in browser flash video. When delivering as flash video, tracking actual commercial views is possible. The problem has been getting licensed content to distribute.

Re:Popups

[LiquidCoooled]

Ahhhh but they get my attention in the wrong way.

I have a mental blacklist of companies who no matter how tempting the offer they will never ever get a sale from me again.

Re:Can anybody say "Dodge Hemi"???

[kanonole]

I like the one where the Toyota Yaris eats the vacuum cleaner spider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skhaeXwfh3s [youtube.com]

Re:Popups

[evilneko]

What channels do you watch where they advertise actual products like that? I've only ever seen networks "promoting" their own shows that way. No comments about how shows are products too, please.

My solution: Ad Insertion

[TrisexualPuppy]

Imagine watching Seinfeld and Jerry pulls a Coke from his refrigerator. Only, in some households he might be seen pulling a Pepsi. Developing the technology to dynamically insert products into the programming is the next logical step in advertising. We see it already, statically, with companies paying gobs of money for product insertion. Imagine instead shooting movies and programming with "generic" green-board like products, and then replacing them with images of the desired product, on a case-by-case basis. You already see some of this in baseball games. There is an ad billboard behind home plate in Fenway park. Nominally it is "green", but it gets replaced in the video stream (at the broadcaster end) with ads. It's not a huge step to move this insertion down to the DVR/cable box. This is where companies like TIVO have the inside track. Their boxes could do the insertion, under command from 'central control'. And they already know our viewing habits (not just what we watch, but when we watch it, and for how long), and our "clicking" habits...postownage

sure

[zogger]

You have 6-10 years to save up for a new engine. Don't buy a new car! Do the maintenance as required, then put in a new engine, possibly a rebuilt transaxle or transmission, etc, whatever you need. You'll come out loads cheaper that way (in most instances, not all of course, YMMV) if you really are buying brand new and you haven't totally beat the old ride to death in the meanwhile.

With that said, hemi refers to the shape of the combustion chamber, hemispherical.

you're right..

[YesIAmAScript]

Except you're years behind.

The baseball think is perhaps as much as 10 years old now.

And the replacement of ads in movies already started. I think it was Turner who was holding up movie companies for extra dough to not replace their ads with other ads when they showed the movies on TV. I remember seeing a movie on TV with a scene in Times Square where they had replaced one ad with another.